At Last, A BPA Ban?

Now that the Canada and the EU have banned BPA in plastic bottles, China may finally be following suit, according to a report in the Beijing News.

BPA, as you may have heard, is a rather nasty substance used in the production of plastic bottles that also happens to cause a whole host of unsavory health problems, including diabetes, cancer and even erectile dysfunction.

Ban or no ban, this new-found awareness of the potential dangers of BPA represents real progress in China – especially considering how virtually every local retailer we checked out back when we first started reporting on BPA in 2008 had virtually no BPA-free baby bottle options in sight.

Unfortunately a ban probably also preludes a new black market boom in fake "BPA-free" plastics and the like here in China — here’s hoping domestic plastic manufacturers don’t follow the sorry example of the local dairy industry.